HF Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights

Endowed in 1986 by De Beers, the HF Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law is located in the public law department of the University of Stellenbosch Law Faculty. The Chair in Human Rights Law was founded with the purposes of promoting the development of human rights law in South African through the three main pillars of academic endeavour – research, teaching and community interaction.

The founding incumbent of the Chair was Emeritus Justice Laurie Ackermann, who went on to serve with distinction as a member of South Africa’s first Constitutional Court. Prof Gerhard Erasmus, an internationally regarded expert in international and comparative human rights law, served as the second incumbent of the Chair.

Professor Sandra Liebenberg is the third and current incumbent of the Chair. She is an internationally renowned scholar in the field of socio-economic rights, and served as Chair of the expert committee advising the Constitutional Assembly on the Bill of Rights in the 1996 Constitution.

Key activities of the Chair include the following:

Producing high quality research and publications

Designing and teaching the major undergraduate module on human rights

Supervising and mentoring a range of postgraduate (LLM and LLD) students in the field of human rights

Co-directing special Faculty projects such as the Socio-Economic Rights and Administrative Justice Project (SERAJ)

Organising the prestigious Annual Human Rights Lecture series of the Chair

Engaging in a range of human rights-related community service activities such as supporting NGO advocacy and public interest litigation, hosting workshops and conferences, and publishing articles in the popular media. In 2014, Prof Liebenberg’s work in this area was recognised through a prestigious Chancellor’s Award.

Building international linkages such as the flagship international course on the judicial protection of economic, social and cultural rights jointly organised on an annual basis by the Chair, the Åbo Akademi Institute of Human Rights, Finland, and the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights.